171–178 of 178 posts
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That ignores the psychological factor and assumes those soldiers will just follow the order. I don't think that would be the case, particularly as they're the type of people that typically own multiple firearms personally.
Beyond that, it is like people have never heard of guerilla warfare. The United States is a vast area and lots of it is lightly inhabited. It would be very difficult to suppress an insurrection.
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Almost all guns are semi automatic. So banning semi auto weapons, as you suggest, would be equivent to an almost total gun ban. You are free to believe that, but you should realize that this is a very extensive ban.
Hmm. Not sure why you were down voted. I’m interested in hearing logical arguments. I have no idea if your statistics are correct for “almost all guns are semiautomatic”. One impression I’ve had regarding recent 2nd amendment rights arguments is that we need guns for hunting, home protection, self protection, and protection from the government. 1. I’ve never met a hunter that insists on semi automatics for hunting. T…
This also seems to me, at the very least, to be a less intractable/objectionable avenue. Less media coverage would probably do more to ease this problem than the banning of some subset of firearm.
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I also come from a near gun-less country, and think a similar system in America would work. However, there are some arguments in favor of guns that are not trivially ignored. - Simply, guns are fun. Marksmanship is a serious sport of discipline and self-control. - Hunting is also great recreation, is sometimes good for population control, and hunting is another reason for preserving and protecting nature. - Self-defe…
> Finally, some of this is about being able to resist a potential unjust government Anyone who truly believes private citizen gun owners in the US could ever band together and overthrow the US government is deluded, at best. The US military would shut them down in record time.
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> Generally, convincing people isn't helped by immediately dismissing their entire position as trivially wrong and deluded. Who's doing that, though? Seems like a very small minority of people say "there is no possible reason for owning guns" and then refuses to elaborate when presented with possible reasons.
Don't open with "there's no possible reason for owning guns". Perhaps open with 'on balance, I think the arguments for gun ownership are far outweighed by the arguments against it'.
Let's not hold the two sides to different standards of argumentation.
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> Gun owners are all about safety and personal responsibility If that were universally true, we wouldn't have so many gun deaths in the US. I absolutely believe that some (perhaps even many) gun owners handle their guns safely and responsibly, but the laws ensuring such safety and responsibility are few and far between and lack teeth. > Nothing can be done unless people start taking a rational, sober approach to thes…
>universal background checks This would be worth doing. >stricter controls on what can disqualify some people from owning a gun Possible but it would depend on what you wanted to disqualify people for. >mandatory training and licensing I don't think this is reasonable or politically feasible. >restrictions on ammo purchases Not sure what good this would do in reducing gun deaths. You would be hitting target shooter p…
> I don't think this is reasonable or politically feasible.
I agree that it's not politically feasible, but am curious as to why you don't think it's a reasonable requirement. No one reasonably complains against people have to complete a training course in order to get a driver's license (or to the requirement of a license itself). Both activities require a proper understanding of operation and safety, and operation and safety failures of both can easily result in severe injury and death. Ignoring the political issues around this, I'm entirely baffled how the idea of this requirement could be considered unreasonable.
> > restrictions on ammo purchases
> Not sure what good this would do in reducing gun deaths. You would be hitting target shooter pretty hard for not much gain.
In the recent Las Vegas shooting, the shooter reportedly fired several hundreds of rounds. Presumably if he had been legally limited to owning, say 50 or 100 rounds (more than enough for self defense in the home, and sufficient for most hunting outings), fewer injuries and deaths would have occurred.
I will grant the argument that mass shootings are by far the smallest percentage of gun deaths; you only need a single round to commit suicide or for a child to accidentally shoot him/herself, or a few rounds to kill your family, so this sort of limit wouldn't help there.
Regarding target shooters, I think we can easily make an exception for ammo purchased and used at a licensed gun range, as long as the ammo purchased for target use does not leave the gun range. (Shoot it or lose it, basically.)
But I think at the end of the day the question is "what can reduce unlawful harm without putting an undue burden on lawful use?" ... and I think ammo purchase/ownership limits pass that test.
> > restrictions on ... magazine size
> I don't see how this would be very helpful and always strikes me as something advocated for by people who don't understand guns very much. It's part of why you see such opposition to it.
Perhaps not, and I'll admit I'm certainly no gun expert. But a reload or magazine swap isn't instant, and in the case where a shooter is actively engaged with law enforcement, having to pause to reload after (say) 10 rounds instead of 50 could easily mean fewer deaths. Again, if I apply the test I suggest above, I think it passes.
I'll also admit that I personally do not believe in the need or fundamental "right" of private firearm ownership. I'd be fine with a repeal of the 2nd Amendment with an explicit directive to allow the individual states to make their own gun laws, and would be fine if my state banned private gun ownership entirely... so I'm comfortable with many more restrictions than probably most people are. I have no interest in owning a gun and find the vast majority of the reasons people use to argue for gun ownership to be entirely disingenuous. At the end of the day, aside from minor exceptions, the only real reason is "I think they're cool and fun and I and just want one". Which is totally fair and legitimate, and I wish more people would admit that's the real reason they support private gun ownership.
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My position is governments can't be trusted with prohibiting citizens from owning firearms, so let's keep them around.
My question: How the hell are you going to use your hand gun against a lot of pretty well trained soldiers with much better guns? Even in this very unlikely case your gun is going to be very useless. Maybe you could shoot yourself. The down side of having guns in many (dumb/unstable) people's hands is pretty well discussed already.
That assumes a large enough portion of the population that wants to resist owns guns. I wish more liberals (especially groups likely to be persecuted) owned guns for this reason.
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> Finally, some of this is about being able to resist a potential unjust government Anyone who truly believes private citizen gun owners in the US could ever band together and overthrow the US government is deluded, at best. The US military would shut them down in record time.
Keep in mind, the US Military is largely composed of American humans.
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Why would you not include those?
Because suicides don't violate anyone else's freedoms and accidents are accidents.